
Glass. 
Book. 






EL^r 




Reprinted from the Cosmopolitan Magazine of May, 1S94. 



[-0,^^ 

k^r 



Compliments of 

THOMAS EWING, 

41 Wall Street, 

New York City. 



FROM THE 
COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 












By Thomas Ewing. 



IX Februar}-, 1854, I sat in the gallery- 
of the Senate chamber at Washing- 
ton, and heard ninch of the debate on the 
bill to repeal the Missouri compromise of 
1820. I was then about completing my 
collegiate course in Brown university, at 
Providence, Rhode Island. Four 3-ears 
before, I had sat in the gallery of the old 
Senate chamber, now the Supreme Court 
room, in company with Captain William 
Tecumseh Sherman (then in Washington 
from the Pacific coast, and about to be 
married), and heard that ever memorable ■ 
debate which ended in the compromises of 
1850, growing out of our vast accessions 
of territory from Mexico, and in the enact- 
ment of the cruel and barbarous fugitive 
slave law. I was intensely anti-slavery, — 
far more so than my Whig training would 
account for. I was hot with indignation 
at the Whig leaders who supported the 
repeal of the Missouri compromise, or 
acquiesced in it, or resisted it but feebl}'. 
I recollect ni}' pang of disappointment at 
the labored speech against the bill of 
Edward Everett, who was regarded as 
representing the conservative Whigs. It 
was so cool, didactic, elegant, without a 
glow of the indignant spirit of the North 
which blazed in the hearts of the people. 
The gauge thrown down by the South 
to fight for the possession of the territo- 
ries was pronipth- taken up ; and Kansas 
became the battle-ground. While study- 
ing law at Cincinnati, I watched every 
step in the struggle, — saw how the genius 



and energy of Eli Thayer taught the 
North to win Kansas for freedom by or- 
ganized emigration, against the sporadic 
hordes from the populous borders of IMis- 
souri who poured over the line to plant 
slaver}^ there. When admitted to the bar 
in the winter of 1S56-7, I was married, and 
removed with my wife to Leavenworth. 

On the seventh of October, 1854, Andrew 
H. Reeder had arrived atFort Leavenworth 
— the first of the ten governors, and act- 
ing governors, Reeder, Shannon, Geary, 
Walker, Denver, Medar}-, Woodson, Stan- 
ton, Walsh andBeebe, whose brief careers 
form part of the tragic histor}' of Kansas. 

The pro-slaver}' partisans of western 
Missouri, as soon as the Organic Act was 
passed, invaded Kansas at the first election 
in the fall of 1854, and again at the sec- 
ond election in the spring of 1855 ; and 
although few of them intended to become 
settlers, they took possession of the polls 
and returned the pro-slavery candidates 
for the territorial legislature as having 
been elected. The first legislature assem- 
bled at Pawnee, near Fort Rile}', July 2, 
1855 — very promptly ejected nine Free 
State men, who had been inadvertently 
returned as elected ; enacted all the gen- 
eral laws of Missouri, modified so as to be 
applicable to Kansas ; and crowned their 
work b}- enacting a complete slave code, 
specially invented for the occasion — re- 
quiring ever}' territorial ofiicer to swear 
to support the fugitive slave law ; mak- 
ing it a felony, punishable with two 



years' imprisonment, to write or saj' that slavery did 
not legalh' exist in Kansas; a felon\-, punishable with 
five 3-ears' imprisonment, to bring into the Territor}- 
or circulate an}' printed matter calculated to create dis- 
satisfaction among slaves ; and finalh", making it a 
felon}^, punishable with death, to interfere knowingl}', 
in an}^ manner, with the tenure of slave propert}'. 

The Free State men, outraged by the forcible seiz- 
ure of the territorial government by mere invaders, 
and by the atrocious character of the laws enacted, 
peremptorih^ and unanimousl3' repudiated this govern- 
ment as a lawless usurpation. They held a delegate 
convention at Topeka, vSe])teniber 19, 1S55, and there 
provided for the elec- 
tion of members of a 
convention to form 
a State constitution 
and applj- for admis- 
sion into the Unior 
The delegates - 
elected assembled . 
Topeka, October 2;^, 
1855, ^^d sat until 
November iith. 
They formed the 
Topeka constitution 
which was rati fied by 
an almost unan: 
mous vote of tli 
Free State men ul 
Kansas, and was b\ 
petition duh' laid be- 





THOMAS EWING, JR. 
AGE 22. 



Engraved by DeC Orme. 



THOMAS EWING, JR. 
AGE 26. 




Engraved by G. Kriiell. 

THOMAS EWING, JR., AGE 55. 



fore Congress. A bill 
was passed b}- the 
United States House 
o f Representatives 
July 3, 1856, admit- 
ting Kansas into the 
Union under this 
constitution, but it 
was defeated in the 
Senate, and no fur- 
ther action was tak- 
en on it in Congress. 
This constitution, 
however, and the 
State officers and 
legislature elected 
under it, formed the 
nucleus and rallying 
ground for the Free 
State part}', as 
against the usurped Lecompton territorial 
government, until the election in October, 
1857, when the overwhelming numbers of 
the Free State men enabled them to elect 
a large majority of the legislature under 
the Lecompton territorial government, 
which thereupon became universalh* rec- 
ognized as the law-making power of the 
people. The Topeka form of State gov- 
ernment then quieth' passed out of even 
nominal existence. 

Prior to this, on the nineteenth of Feb- 
ruar}-, 1S56, the pro-slaver3' territorial leg- 
islaturehadenacteda lawproviding for the 
election of a State convention, which as- 
sembled on the seventh day of September, 
1857, and formed what was known as the 
Lecompton State coustitiition. This was 
submitted to the people for adoption or 
rejection at an election held December 21, 
1857. There was a large majority of qual- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



ified voters ready and anxious to vote it 
down. That would have ended slaver}- in 
Kansas forever. But the convention had 
arranged an ingenious and rascalh' scheme 
for submission of the constitution in 
such manner that a majority could not 
vote it down. Part of the tickets were 
printed, "For the Constitution, with 
Slavery," the other part, " For the Con- 
stitution, without Slavery." No other 
votes could be given or counted. All the 
votes cast were for the adoption of the 
constitution ; and even if the constitution 
should be adopted without slavery, the 
slaves then in the Territory-, and their 
children, were to remain slaves for life. 

As the time approached for this elec- 
tion a Free State delegate convention was 
called and held at Lawrence, December 2, 
1857, " to take into consideration the pres- 
ent political situation of the Territory." 
It resolved unanimousl}' that everything 
connected with the Lecompton constitu- 
tion was a swindle, and that the people 
could gain nothing b}' participating in 
the election on the adoption of the con- 
stitution. So that election went by de- 
fault in favor of the pro-slavery party. 
The votes stood, for the constitution, with 
slavery, 6143 (a large part of which votes 
were fraudulent), and for the constitu- 
tion, without slavery, 569. Three thou- 
sand and twelve of this vote were re- 
turned from three precincts — Oxford, 
Shawnee, and Kickapoo, — which every- 
body knew had not combined a voting 
population of three hundred — the two 
precincts first mentioned being in the 
Shawnee Reserve, where there were no 
white men legally settled. 

Then came the election for State officers 
and legislature under the Lecompton con- 
stitution, which had been fixed in the 
schedule of that instrument to be held on 
the fourth of January, 1858. The conven- 
tion of the Free State part}', held on the 
second of December, was re-convened, to 
assemble in the Congregational church at 
West Lawrence on the twenty-third of 
December, to settle the question whether 
the Free State party should or should not 
go into the election of officers under the 
Lecompton con.stitution, and elect, as they 
could easily do. Free State executive offi- 
cers and a Free State legislature. 

This was the final crisis in the struggle 
for freedom in Kansas. If the Free State 



men should elect a majorit}' of the State 
and local officers and of the legislature, 
under the Lecompton constitution, we 
would thereb}- kill that attempted usur- 
pation in Congress, because the South 
could gain nothing b}' admitting the State 
into the Union, with the certainty that 
the constitution would be immediatel}' 
amended, prohibiting slavery utterly and 
forever. While, if the Free State men 
should refuse to vote, the pro-slavery men 
would control all departments of the pro- 
posed State government, and the State 
would, in all probability, be admitted 
under the Lecompton constitution. 

The expediency of our electing officers 
under the Lecompton constitution was 
obvious to a large niajorit}' of the Free 
State men of Kansas, and was well sup- 
ported by The Herald of Freedom, The 
Leavenworth Times, and other influential 
newspapers of our party. That policy 
was also urged on us by many influential 
friends of free State in and out of Con- 
gress — by my father, the Hon. Thomas 
Ewing, of Ohio, who wrote my elder 
brother, Hugh Ewing, then in partner- 
ship with me in the practice of law at 
Leavenworth, most strongly insisting that 
the Free State men in Kansas, who were 
known to have a large majorit}^ in the 
Territor}-, should elect the State officers 
and members of the legislature under the 
Lecompton constitution, and thus take 
possession of the government and control 
it, so as to make Kansas a free State — just 
as in the then recent October election the 
Free State men chose the legislature and 
took possession of the territorial govern- 
ment. The Hon. Salmon P. Chase, then 
governor of Ohio, wrote an tirgent letter 
to Governor Robinson, advising the vot- 
ing policy, which, as well as the letter 
from ni}' father, was read to the conven- 
tion with great effect. The Hon. Samuel 
F. Vinton, an eminent member of the 
House of Representatives from Ohio, 
wrote a similar letter to me, which I read 
to the convention, in which he said that 
if the Free vState men should stubbornly 
and fanatical!}' refuse to adopt this pol- 
ic}', he for one would abandon the strug- 
gle in Congress in our behalf. 

But that was the path leading to a peace- 
ful solution of the Kansas strife, and many 
of the most active Free State leaders in 
Kansas did not want to tread it. They 



THE STRUGGLE TOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



hoped for armed collisions 
between the Free State men 
and the general government, 
expecting that all of the 
states would become in- 
volved, and that although 
the North would be in re- 
bellion, and the South would 
have the prestige and power 
of the legitimate govern- 
ment, the superior numbers 
and resources of the North 
would certainly triumph. 
John Brown, of Osav/ot- 
tomie, was the inspirer, 
though not the active leader, 
of this radical wing of the 
Free State party. He re- 
garded slavery as a crime, to 
be expiated in blood, and 
himself as a chosen instru- 
ment of its expiation — " the 
sword of the Lord, and of 
Gideon." His oft-repeated 
maxim was, " Without blood 
there can be no remission." 
His dream was of the aboli- 
tion of slavery b}^ Northern 
ba\'onets, aided by the torch 
of the slave. He never 
doubted that the blacks would rise en 
masse, as soon as the North should be in 
the field to support them. He and his in- 
fluential followers, mostly correspondents 
of Eastern papers, were, therefore, deter- 
mined to defeat the proposition to vote 
for officers under the Lecompton constitu- 
tion, and were active and enthusiastic in 
securing control of the convention, held 
on the twenty-third of December, 1857. 

Charles Robinson, who had been chosen 
governor under the Topeka constitution — 
a man of great ability, earnestness and 
honesty of purpose, — presided at this con- 
vention and strongly urged the adoption 
of the voting policy. IMost of the recog- 
nized leaders of the Free State part}- sup- 
ported it — George W. Brown (now of 
Rockford, Illinois) ; S. N. Wood, P. C. 
Schuyler, M. F. Conway, J. P. Root, Rob- 
ert ]\Iorrow, James Davis, S. C. Pomero^-, 
myself, and others, spoke for that policy. 
General James H. Lane, who was by many 
regarded as preeminently the leader of the 
Free State party, was absent — non-com- 
mittal — craftj'-sick. 

For several days preceding the assem- 




JAMES H. LANE, IN 1858. 

bling of the convention, it was rumored 
throvigh the Territory that the United 
States marshal at Fort Scott held a writ, 
issued out of the District Court there, 
commanding him to arrest James Mont- 
gomer}-, one of the radical Free State 
leaders, on an indictment for treason, 
and that the marshal had been fur- 
nished with a posse of two companies 
of Federal infantry, to enforce obedience 
to the writ, and was about to set out for 
Sugar Mound, in Linn county, where 
INIontgomery lived and where several hun- 
dred Free State men had assembled to re- 
sist and prevent his arrest by force of 
arms. 

The debate in the convention, on the 
proposition to take part in the election, 
was protracted throughout the first day, 
and was very acrimonious and exciting. 
On the second day, December 24th, the 
debate went on, and the friends of the 
voting policy had almost silenced opposi- 
tion, when "General" E. B. Whitman, one 
of General Lane's political lieutenants, 
rode up to the church where the conven- 
tion was being held, and, dismounting 



THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



from " his steed of foam," strode into the 
convention and on to the platform, booted 
and spurred, "stained with the variation 
of each soil" 'twixt Sugar Mound and 
Ivawrence, and in a passionate speech de- 
clared that he had just ridden eight}- 
luiles, from Sugar INIound, without stop- 
ping for food or sleep, to call the people 
of Kansas to arms : that General Lane 
was in command there, and a desperate 
battle was impending with the Federal 
troops. The excitement that followed 
this announcement was furious and inde- 
scribable. I sprang on a table and bitterly 
denounced the statement as an obvious 
trick and fraud to control the convention. 
But the vote was forced at once, and the 
voting policy was re- 
jected — ayes, sixty- 
four ; noes, seventy- 
four. The vote was 
taken by representa- 
tive districts, and prox- 
ies were received ; but 
the vote of persons ac- 
tually present, stood 
sixty-four for the vot- 
ing policy, tosixt3'-fi ve 
against it. In the ex- 
citement and confusion 
which followed, the 
convention adjourned 
sine die. 

While the assem- 
blage was breaking up, 
I called several friends 
to accompany me, and 
hastening to W. Y. 
Roberts, vice-president of the convention 
and a strong supporter of the voting pol- 
ic}-, we persuaded him to announce to the 
dispersing crowd that the friends of that 
policy who were willing to bolt the action 
of the convention would meet at Ma.sonic 
Hall on Massachusetts street, at seven 
o'clock that evening, to nominate a State 
ticket and organize the Territory for the 
election. The announcement was received 
with violent denunciations and 3'ells of dis- 
sent. The bolters' meeting, when convened 
that evening, was broken up by a mob, 
who put out the lights and forcibly ejected 
all the bolting delegates from the hall. We 
re-convened, on the invitation of George 
W. Brown, in the basement of his Herald 
of Freedom printing-office. Only thirteen 
bolting delegates appeared, out of sixty- 




d by Del' Oi me. 

GEORGE \V. BROWN, IN' 



four, W'ho in the convention supported the 
voting policy to the last. A Free State 
ticket was nominated, as follows: for gov- 
ernor, George W. Smith; lieutenant-gover- 
nor, W. Y. Roberts ; secretar}' of state, P. 
C. Schuyler ; state treasurer, A. J. ^leade 
(now a resident of New York Cit}-) ; state 
auditor, Joel K. Goodin ; representative 
in Congress, INIarcus J. Parrott, who was 
then delegate in Congress from the Terri- 
tory — all tried and true Free State men ; 
all pledged, if they should be elected and 
the State admitted under the Lecompton 
constitution, to favor an immediate call 
of a convention, to wipe out every vestige 
of that odious constitution, and to frame 
and adopt a new one — a pledge which 
was exacted from ever}' 
Free State candidate, 
big and little, nomi- 
nated in the bolting 
movement. 

The next da}- — 
Christmas — a large 
edition of The Herald 
of Freedom was gotten 
out by George W. 
Brown, its editor and 
proprietor — to whose 
pen and purse, zeal 
and sense, the Free 
State cause, from be- 
ginning to end of the 
struggle, was greatly 
indebted for its tri- 
umphs. It w-as filled 
with arguments and 
information in favor 
of our movement, and w-ith tickets for 
the Free State candidates. I hired every 
livery-stable horse and rider that could 
be hired in Lawrence, and had many 
volunteers, who carried The Herald of 
Freedom post-haste to every considerable 
settlement in the Territory. It will be 
considered, I hope, only a pardonable 
vanity in me to say that I personally ex- 
pended in the movement over a thousand 
dollars — being all the money I had or 
could borrow^ We had but nine days in 
which to organize and conduct the cam- 
paign, over a settled territory two hun- 
dred miles square, without a railroad. 

The pro -slavery men and newspapers 
fought us fiercely. Fully half of the Free 
State newspapers supported our move- 
ment, but the other half bitterly opposed 



THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



and ridiculed it, calling our voters' as- 
semblage "Brown's cellar-kitchen con- 
vention," and calling ns all " disap- 
pointed, ambitious kickers" and "sore- 
heads." S. N. Wood, of Council Grove, 
who had been appointed chairman of the 
executive committee b}' the bolters' con- 
vention, did great work in organizing 
and conducting the campaign. Never was 
there a nine days' canvass conducted over 
a greater area, under greater difficulties, 
or more vigoroush'. The result was 
watched in Washington and throughout 
Kansas with breathless interest, as likely 
to settle forever the vexed Kansas ques- 
tion one way or the other. 

At Leavenworth, a town of perhaps four 
thousand people, the 
largest in the Ter- 
ritory, the election 
"was regular and the 
vote full, free and 
fair on both sides. 
At Mound City, in 
Linn county, ISIont- 
gomer}' seized and 
destroyed the ballot- 
box and broke up 
the election when 
about half the votes 
had been cast. At 
Sugar Mound, also, 
the ballot-box was 
destro3-ed and the 
ballots scattered to 
the winds by a party 
of Free State men 
who were hostile 
to the voting pol- 
icy ; and so, also, at Clinton. In Wa- 
baunsee county it was the boast of some 
of the extreme Free State men that the 
feeling was too intense there to suffer an 
election for officers under the Lecompton 
constitution to be held in any precinct in 
that county. The night before the elec- 
tion I organized a company of about 
thirty armed Free State men under Cap- 
tain Losee, and towards morning went 
with them to Kickapoo, a pro-slavery vil- 
lage numbering a few hundred people, 
eight miles above Leavenworth and di- 
rectly across the IMissoun river from 
Weston, Missouri, a large town which had 
contracted the habit of sending its men 
at every election to swell the pro-slavery 
vote in Kickapoo. We rode into Kicka- 



Engraved by DcV Ornic. 

ELI THAYER, IN 1885 



poo at daybreak, and had lied our horses 
and taken position near the polling place 
before the voting commenced, intending 
to see who voted and how man\'. Our 
appearance caused great excitement, and 
threats of violence especially among the 
IMissourians, who came from Weston as 
fast as the one ferry-boat could bring them. 
B\'ten o'clock, we were so overwhelmingly 
outnumbered that all of our troop had been 
induced to return to Leavenworth, excejit 
onl_v the venerable John C. Vaughan, 
Wolff, Currier, and myself. We four gave 
our pistols to our retiring comrades, as 
more likeh' to provoke attack on us than 
to be useful in defence against such num- 
bers. We then took position near the 
polling window in a 
corner made by a 
projection of the 
building, where we 
might be crushed, 
but from which we 
could hardly be 
ejected, and there 
we stood all day. 
The voters, gener- 
ally, made head- 
quarters in several 
saloons, from which 
the}' poured out 
from time to time, 
noisy, drunk, armed 
with two revolvers 
to the voter — each 
man voting several 
times; several gangs 
voting as often as 
six times, — threat- 
ening us with death if we did not leave 
for Leavenworth. A friend of mine named 
Spivey, who was a clerk for General 
Whitfield, in the Kickapoo land office, 
and who was a sober and sensible man, 
acted as an intermediary between the 
mob and us, warning us most solemnly 
to leave for Leavenworth, or we would 
be murdered. I told vSpivey, and had 
him tell the mob, that we would not 
leave until the polls should close, and 
that they would not dare to fire on us, 
because they knew that if they should 
kill one of us, the Free State people of 
Leavenworth would burn both Kickapoo 
and Weston to the subsoil before morning. 
Just before the polls clo.sed, to mark the 
end, Mr. Currier and I voted— as we had 




THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



a right to do, being citizens of that coun- 
ty. Our votes were numbered 550 and 
551. Only two votes were cast after we 
voted, when the polls were closed, the to- 
tal vote being 553. Whereupon, about 
dark, after having submitted to a good 
deal of hustling and rough handling, we 
rode off for Leavenworth in a shower of 
rotten eggs and pistol shots. 

The returns of the election, as provided 
in the schedule of the constitution, were 
sent to John Calhoun, at Lecompton, who 
was surve^'or-general of Kansas, and pres- 
ident of the convention. He made and 
published his official statement of the 
result in each county, showing the elec- 
tion of the entire pro-slavery State ticket, 
and a pro-slavery majority in both branches 
of the legislature. His decision was 
prima facie correct, and bej'ond review or 
reversal by any territorial authority. 
Calhoun forthwith left for Washington to 
report the result to Buchanan's adminis- 
tration, that it might be officially laid be- 
fore Congress. 

Immediately on this announcement, 
and solely on my own impulse and initia- 
tive, I went to the territorial legislature, 
which had assembled at Lawrence in reg- 
ular session, January 4, 1858, and was con- 
trolled by the Free State party, and there 
procured the passage of a la»^ approved 




JAMES MONTGOMERY, IN 1858. 



January 14, 1858, creating a board to in- 
vestigate and report upon the frauds com- 
mitted at the election on the adoption of 
the constitution, December 21, 1857; and 
also at the election for officers under the 
constitution, January 4, 1858, and in the 
returns thereof Henry J. Adams, J. B. 
Abbott, Dillon Peckering, E. L. Taylor, 
H. T. Green, and myself, composed the 
board. L. A. McLean, who was Sur- 
veyor-General Calhoun's chief clerk, was 
summoned to appear before us as a wit- 
ness, together with other pro-slavery men 
employed in the office of the survej'or- 
general at Lecompton, where the election 
returns and all the archives relating to 
the Lecompton constitution had been 
filed. McLean appeared and swore that 
Calhoun had taken all the returns relat- 
ing to the elections under the Lecompton 
constitution with him to Washington. 
This struck us as a very improbable storv ; 
but McLean stuck to it with a respectful- 
ness, dignity and sincerity of manner 
which were very impressive. No one 
could be found to throw a doubt on his 
statement. We had the surveyor-gen- 
eral's office at Lecompton searched for 
the returns by our sergeant-at-arms, but 
not a scrap of them was found. Our in- 
vestigation, obviousl}', could amount to 
nothing without these returns ; so, with 
Calhoun in Washington, and his subordi- 
nates swearing that he took the returns 
with him, we felt utterly baffled and 
beaten. 

At a late hour of the second night after 
INIcLean's testimon}' was given, as I was 
returning to my room at the Eldridge 
House, I was accosted in the dark, on a 
lonely street, by a man whom I did not 
know, who asked my name, but refused 
to give his own. He handed me his re- 
volver as an assurance of his pacific in- 
tentions, saj'ing that he had been watch- 
ing on the street for me for several hours. 
He said he had heard a report of McLean's 
testimony before our board, and desired 
to know if it was given as stated. I re- 
plied that it was. He said it was a lie, 
and he could prove it, if it would do any 
good. He said, however, that he lived at 
Lecompton, and would in all probability be 
murdered if he should be known to have 
informed on McLean and his associates. 
I satisfied him that if he could and would 
give me information exposing the falsity 



THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



of McLean's testimony, his action should 
not be known, and that with that infor- 
mation, we could drive Calhoun and his 
gang from the Territory, and defeat the 
Lecompton constitution. 

He then said that late in the night pre- 
ceding the day when McLean appeared as 
a witness before our board, he (McLean) 
had buried a large candle-box under a 
woodpile adjoining his office, and that 
he had been seen by Charley Torrey, the 
janitor, who slept in the building and 
who told my informant. He then gave 
me his name as Henry W. Petrikin, and 
described himself as being a clerk in the 
office of William Brindle, receiver of the 
United States land office at Leconipton. 
This was a voucher 
for his good faith, 
for I knew enough 
of General Brindle 
to know that he 
would have no ras- 
cals about him. 

Next da}', aided 
by my official posi- 
tion as one of the 
commissioners to in- 
vestigate the elec- 
tion frauds, I ob- 
tained from Josiah 
Miller, probate 
judge of Douglas 
county, (now de- 
ceased), a search- 
warrant directed to 
Captain Samuel 
Walker, sheriff of 
Douglas c o u n t 3' 

(who had already done loyal service to 
the Free State cause and was eager to 
do more), commanding him to enter upon 
and search the premises of the survey- 
or-general, in Lecompton, and (if prac- 
ticable) to find, take and bring before 
Judge Miller all the original returns of 
elections on or under the Leconipton con- 
stitution. Enjoining Judge Miller to se- 
crecy, I then sought Sheriff Walker and 
requested him to pick out a dozen fight- 
ing men well armed, to go with him as a 
posse, and told him I had a writ for him 
to execute, and would tell him at day- 
break next morning where to go and what 
to do. Captain Walker was on hand punct- 
ually, with his trusty squad in a back 
alley ; and after receiving the warrant and 



Engraved by Del Oi in,:. 

CHARLES ROBII 



full instructions from me, he set out un- 
observed from Lawrence for Lecompton, 
eight miles away. He pounced upon the 
surveyor-general's premises early in the 
morning, dug up a buried candle-box from 
under a great woodpile adjoining the 
office, and before noon he rode up Massa- 
chusetts street, in Lawrence, at the head 
of his squad, holding the candle-box on 
the pummel of his saddle. 

C. W. Babcock, president of the coun- 
cil ; G. W. Dietzler, speaker of the House 
of Representatives ; and J. W. Denver, 
acting governor, met the Investigating 
Board in the office of Judge ]\Iiller. Sher- 
iff Walker made return of his search-war- 
rant and delivered the candle-box to Judge 
INIiller, who opened 
and produced from 
it all the returns of 
the election for offi- 
cers of the Lecomp- 
ton constitution, 
which McLean had 
sworn had been 
taken by Calhoun to 
Washington. The 
Kickapoo returns 
had swollen to 995, 
from 553, which was 
the actual vote 
(chiefl}' fraudulent) 
when the polls 
closed, there being 
442 names added to 
the list of voters 
after the names of 
SON, IN 1S58. Currier and Kwing, 

and after the polls 
closed. Oxford, which had a legitimate 
vote of about one hundred, had the num- 
ber increased in the returns, through ob- 
vious forgery, to 1266 ; the returns from 
Shawnee showed about fifty real voters, 
to which had been added names — fic- 
titious names, bringing the total up to 
729. The fraudulent additions were as 
apparent on the face of the returns as 
would be extensions of the legs in a 
boy's trowsers. They were all on the 
pro-slavery side ; but proving insuffi- 
cient to effect the desired result, a return 
from Delaware Crossing, in Leavenworth 
county, which had been honestly made by 
the two judges of election, was forged, by 
splicing with a sheet containing 336 addi- 
tional names of pro-slavery voters in a 




THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



different handwriting and in different ink 
— these fraudulent votes electing the 
whole legislative ticket of eleven mem- 
bers from Leavenworth count\', and giv- 
ing both branches of the legislature to 
the pro-slavery part3^ 

These entire returns showed 6875 votes 
cast for Free State candidates, and, count- 
ing in all the returns, valid and fraudu- 
lent, a few hundred more for pro-slavery 
candidates. On the same day, the fourth 
of January, 1858, an election was held 
under a statute then recently passed by 
the Free State legislature, to take a vote 
on the adoption or rejection of the Le- 
coinpton constitution, at which 10,226 
I'otes were cast against it, and none in its 
favor. This last-named vote shows the 
whole strength of the Free State party of 
Kansas, while the vote of 6875 for Free 
State candidates under the Lecompton con- 
.stitution, shows that 3351 Free State men 
who voted against the Lecompton consti- 
tution did not vote for officers under it. 
In other words, the Free State men who 
opposed the voting policy were thus 
shown to comprise only one-third of the 
Free State part}'. 

Immediately on this exposure (January' 
28, 185S), I swore out a warrant for the ar- 
rest of McLean, for perjury. But as soon 
as the candle-box had been dug up from 
the woodpile, he had fled with his fellow- 
conspirators, never to return to Kansas. 
I met ]\IcLean six years later, when I was 
in command of our troops at Fort David- 
son, adjacent to Pilot Knob, Missouri, 
ninety miles below St. Louis. He was 
then chief of staff of General Sterling 
Price, who was marching on vSt. Louis at 
the head of an army of twenty-two thou- 
sand men. McLean came to me under a 
flag of truce, demanding the surrender to 
Price of the little fort and its garrison of 
1060 men, together with its enormous ac- 
cumulation of quartermaster, commissary 
and ordnance stores, which were greatlv 
needed by the rebel army. The demand 
being refused. Price stormed the fort, but 
was repulsed with great slaughter. 

It is but just to McLean to say, that I 
have a letter from Ely Moore, of Law- 
rence, dated March i, 1894, which says that 
he was living at Lecompton on the twent}'- 
fifth of January, 1858, when the candle- 
box containing the returns was buried 
under the woodpile, and that it was done 



b}' another person, whom he names, with- 
out McLean's presence or knowledge. 
And further, that McLean really believed, 
when he testified before the board, that 
the returns had been taken b}- Calhoun 
to Washington. He says McLean fled 
the night following the vmearthing of the 
candle -box, because appearances indi- 
cated that he had committed perjury, 
though, in fact, he was innocent of the 
crime. 

The exposure of the frauds struck the 
Lecomptonites dumb. Every incident 
was telegraphed and published ever}'- 
where. On the day of the exposure, 
Henry W. Petrikin, who is now living at 
Montoursville, Pennsylvania, got a brief 
statement of the facts signed by the pre- 
siding officers of the two houses of the 
legislature, and by Acting - Governor 
Denver, which statement he carried post- 
ha.ste to Wa.shington and laid before Pres- 
ident Buchanan in presence of Senator 
Bigler, of Penns3'lvania ; Senator Dick- 
inson, of New York ; General Sam Hous- 
ton, of Texas ; Hon. Allison White, of 
Pennsylvania ; and R. Bruce Petrikin, 
of Pennsylvania. I followed in a da}' or 
two with the report of our board to inves- 
tigate the election frauds, accompanied by 
an abstract of the candle-box returns, and 
a memorial to Congress, all of which I 
caused to be printed at once and laid on 
the desk of each member of Congress. 

Thereupon, the bill then pending in 
Congress for the admission of Kansas in- 
to the Union, under the Lecompton con- 
stitution, dropped dead. A few months 
afterwards the English bill was forced 
through Congress by the administration. 
It provided for the submission of the Le- 
compton constitution to a free vote of 
the people of Kansas, and offered them 
five and a half millions of acres of the 
public lands for common schools and a 
universit3% and five per cent, of all the 
public lands in the Territory (being 
about two and a half millions of acres 
more ) for internal improvements — all 
the grants being conditioned on the ac- 
ceptance of that constitution b}' the 
people. The oflFer and the constitution 
were contemptuoush' rejected on the sec- 
ond of August, 1858, by a vote of 11,300 
against the proposition, to 1788 in its 
favor. Thereupon, the Lecompton con- 
stitution was abandoned, and Kansas was 



THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 








From a photo by 

J. J. Haivei:, Bosiu 



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kept out of the Union for more than two 
years longer to do penacce for its devo- 
tion to freedom. 

The waves which rolled high in Kansas 
during the political storm of 1855-6-7 ex- 
tended throughout the Northern States 
and were long in subsiding. As late as 
the fall of 1S60, the Kansas questions 
were uppermost for political discussion 
in every Northern state. On my way 
through Cincinnati to Lancaster, Ohio, 
during the political campaign in October, 
TS59, I was taken to make a speech at a 



Repviblican meeting in Fifth street, Market 
space, then being addressed by Tom Cor- 
win and Caleb B. Smith. When I reached 
the stand, Corwin was speaking. He 
had been discussing only Kansas ques- 
tions. As I ascended the steps, he turned 
and greeted me with some pleasant words 
of recognition, and then branched off on 
Kansa-s^politics, appealing to me as a wit- 
ness and a participant. He told with mock 
gravity of our many governments there ; 
spoke' of the Lecompton territorial gov- 
ernment, the Topeka provisional govern- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 



ment, the Lecompton State government, 
the Topeka State government, and the 
Leavenworth State government, and de- 
scribed them all as being in full opera- 
tion, electing State, territorial, county, 
township, and city officers under each 
government, and all in full operation at 
the same time. He said it brought on 
a general election every month, and a 
county, city, or township election every 
other day. He said : "My fellow -citi- 
zens : Kind and benignant nature always 
responds to the wants and habits of men ; 
and I now make the prediction that the 
next generation in Kansas will be born 
with ballot - bo.xes in their bellies, like 
'po.ssums ; so they can vote whenever 
the\^ want to ! " 

Thirty-six years have passed since the 
Free State struggle in Kansas ended. I 
have never, until recentl}', told all of this 
story to any but my own famil}-. In 
making it public now, I wish not to seem 
unmindful of the heroism of the Free 
State men in the earlier phases of the 
contest, when many suffered capture, im- 
prisonment and death in the cause ; nor 
of the wisdom and forbearance of Gov- 
ernor Robinson and his associates, and 
the patriotic resistance to party dictation 
of Governors Walker, Stanton and Den- 
ver, which contributed so much to the 
happy solution of the controversy. I 
have written only of the last phase of 
that protracted struggle, wliich ended in 
February, 185S, in the abandonment of 
all attempt to force slavery on Kansas. 

Those brilliant, patriotic and enthu.sias- 
tic young men of the press^William A. 
Phillips, lately deceased, who crowned his 
glorious services for freedom in Kansas, 
with a service equally glorious in the 
army ; James Redpath, Richard J. Hinton, 
and their associates, Kegi, Realf, Cook, 
Tappan, Walden, and others, whose po- 
litical letters filled all the Republican 
papers of that day with reports of the 
struggle for freedom in Kansas^ were 
imbued with John Brown's fervid faith 

^ ! (V , ' ' 



that slaver}' would be abolished through 
a war of the North against the South, 
brought on hy collisions in Kansas be- 
tween the Free State part}- and the Fed- 
eral government. In their correspondence 
with the Republican newspapers, they 
wrought up and magnified the incidents 
of the Kansas struggle in 1855-6-7, when 
it was a struggle of force and blood ; but 
the}' were not friendly to the efforts by 
which the Lecompton constitution was at 
last peacefully defeated. Hence the final 
and decisive movements which I have 
here narrated were ignored or underes- 
timated in the contemporary press, and 
have been almost overlooked in nearly 
all the histories of the Kansas struggle. 
The importance of that struggle cannot 
be overestimated. It was the prelude to the 
War of the Rebellion, and prepared the 
people to realize its magnitude and to re- 
solve that it should be a fight to the finish. 
But for this long preparation, it is not 
improbable that the Rebellion would have 
ended in a compromise, leaving slavery, 
though crippled, a lasting cause of bad 
blood and strife between the sections. 
Had John Brown's purpose to bring on a 
war between the sections succeeded, with 
the South in possession of all the power 
and prestige of the General government, 
and the North in rebellion, all the nations 
of the world would have stood by the 
South and the General government ; 
while the North would have been di- 
vided, overwhelmed and conquered. But 
there was a higher power which foiled 
John Brown's mad scheme. The great 
sweep of events, from the Kansas Ne- 
braska bill to the surrender at Appomat- 
tox, was no doubt divinely directed to 
unify and purify our people for their 
glorious mission. Whoever bore an hon- 
orable part, however humble, on the 
Northern side in the great struggle, has 
reason to thank God for having made him 
an instrument in preserving this benefi- 
cent Republic, which is the hope and 
light of the world. 



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